1. Agroforestry and the Green Deal

This is the first in a series of Briefings about agroforestry policy in the European Union, its Member States, and other European countries. This first issue gives an overview of mentions of agroforestry in the European Green Deal and explains the EURAF Agroforestry Typology, with recommendations for its inclusion in the LPIS systems of Member States. For information on future Briefings check out www.euraf.netEURAF Policy Briefing #

Agroforestry & Adaptation to Climate Change

Agroforestry is mentioned in the Adaptation Strategy or Adaptation Plan of ONLY 11 Member States. This is despite extensive scientific literature on using agroforestry systems to help adapt agriculture and forestry to climate change. There is also a FAO guide on how to include both forestry and agroforestry in National Adaptation Plans. EURAF suggests that the Adaptation Plans of Czechia, France, Italy and Slovakia are examples of good practice, and provides guidance for other countries on how they can include agroforestry measures related to i) improved carbon sequestration; ii) reduced soil erosion, increased fertility and resource use efficiency; iii) greater resistance to droughts and floods; iv) diversified landscapes and biodiversity; v) reduced pest and disease pressure; vi) maintained crop yields and animal welfare; vii) increased resilience to extreme events - including wildfires and storms; viii) improved economic diversity and benefits; and ix) reduced groundwater and air pollution.EURAF Policy Briefing #2

Book of abstracts, 4th World Congress on Agroforestry

International audienc

Energy cultures: A framework for understanding energy behaviours

Achieving a ‘step-change’ in energy efficiency behaviours will require enhanced knowledge of behavioural drivers, and translation of this knowledge into successful intervention programmes. The ‘Energy Cultures’ conceptual framework aims to assist in understanding the factors that influence energy consumption behaviour, and to help identify opportunities for behaviour change. Building on a history of attempts to offer multi-disciplinary integrating models of energy behaviour, we take a culture-based approach to behaviour, while drawing also from lifestyles and systems thinking. The framework provides a structure for addressing the problem of multiple interpretations of ‘behaviour’ by suggesting that it is influenced by the interactions between cognitive norms, energy practices and material culture. The Energy Cultures framework is discussed in the context of a New Zealand case study, which demonstrates its development and application. It has already provided a basis for cross-disciplinary collaboration, and for multi-disciplinary research design, and has provided insights into behavioural change in a case study community. As the conceptual basis of a 3-year research project, the framework has further potential to identify clusters of ‘energy cultures’ – similar patterns of norms, practices and/or material culture – to enable the crafting of targeted actions to achieve behaviour change

Music and Arts in Health Promotion and Death Education: The St Christopher’s Schools Project

The reality of death and dying is rarely discussed openly in modern Western societies, while death sometimes is even considered to be a ‘failure’ in the context of traditional, medically-focused healthcare systems. Similarly, loss and transition are part of the National School Curriculum in the UK, but many schools still find approaching these subjects difficult. In this context St Christopher’s hospice in London has initiated and delivered the ‘Schools Project’ since 2005. The St Christopher’s Schools Project is an innovative community arts programme. It takes the form of short-term collaborative arts projects between terminally ill patients and students from primary and secondary schools, as well as colleges within the hospice’s catchment area. The Schools Project has attracted the interest of many other hospices, as well as other healthcare institutions and inspired the development of similar projects, both nationally and internationally. The aim of the Schools Project is to introduce the hospice and its work to the school communities in a creative and non-threatening way. Within a structured framework students are given the opportunity to interact and engage in music and art making together with terminally ill patients, culminating in an exhibition or performance. Promoting healthier attitudes towards death and dying amongst the students, their teachers, school peers, parents and carers, is at the core of the project. This paper presents the philosophy and aims, as well as the process and outcomes, of the Schools Project. Additionally, an overview of all of the projects that have taken place at St Christopher’s since 2005, as well as some prospects for future development, are given. This will hopefully stimulate a constructive dialogue with regards to the potential role of hospices and the arts in the promotion of health and death education, as well as their potential impact on the development of sustainable healthcare policies and practices not only in palliative care, but also in other health and social care contexts

Uplifting voices

Uplifting voice

Locally Contingent and Community-Dependent: Tools and Technologies for Indigenous Language Mobilization

2021. Jennifer Carpenter, Annie Guerin, Michelle Kaczmarek, Gerry Lawson, Kim Lawson, Lisa P. Nathan and Mark Turin. “Locally Contingent and Community-Dependent: Tools and Technologies for Indigenous Language Mobilization.” In Indigenous Languages and the Promise of Archives, edited by Adrianna Link, Abigail Shelton, and Patrick Spero, 125–55. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press

Digital access for language and culture in First Nations communities

Digital access for language and culture in First Nations communitie

The Practice of Interdisciplinarity

There is a rocky chasm between the promise of interdisciplinary research and successful interdisciplinary research practice. As a group of researchers from New Zealand, based in five different disciplines (consumer psychology, economics, sociology, law, engineering), we share an interest in the behaviour of energy consumers, but understand behaviour through very different lenses. Initially we were mutually baffled by our discipline-specific languages and diverse theoretical stances. Over a period of time, however, we developed ways of working together to realise the benefits of collaboration. In this paper we reflect on the differences between disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, and discuss the practices we have adopted that support interdisciplinarity. These include the importance of trust, focusing on a problem, being aware of limits, sharing a common intellectual framework, testing ideas across the disciplines, and practicing interdisciplinarity at every level of the research project. We suggest that not all people are comfortable with interdisciplinary work, and draw parallels with Kohlberg’s ‘stages of moral development’, in that interdisciplinarians need to be ‘post-conventional’ in the sense that they do not feel bound by the conventions of their own discipline and recognise the legitimacy and value of other perspectives and methods of inquiry

Outcome trends in people with heart failure, type 2 diabetes mellitus and chronic kidney disease in the UK over twenty years

Background: Heart failure (HF) together with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are major pandemics of the twenty first century. It is not known in people with new onset HF, what the distinct and combined associations are between T2D and CKD comorbidities and cause-specific hospital admissions and death, over the past 20 years. Methods: An observational study using the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink linked to the Hospital Episode Statistics in England (1998-2017). Participants were people aged >= 30 years with new onset HF. Exposure groups were HF with: (i) no T2D and no CKD (reference group); (ii) CKD-only (estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) Findings: In 87,709 HF patients (mean age, 78 years; 49% female), 40% had CKD-only, 12% T2D-only, and 16% both. Age-standardised first-year CVD hospitalisation rates were significantly higher in HF patients with CKD-only (46.4; 95% CI 44.9,47.9 per 100 person years) and T2D-only (49.2; 46.7,58.8) than in the reference group (35.1; 34.0,36.1); the highest rate was in patients with T2D-CKD-5: 89.1 (65.8,112.4). Similar patterns were observed for non-CVD hospitalisations and deaths. Group differences remained significant after adjustment for potential confounders. Median survival was highest in the reference (4.4 years) and HF-T2D-only (4.1 years) groups, compared to HF-CKD-only (2.2 years). HF-T2D-CKD group survival ranged from 2.8 (CKD-3a) to 0.7 years (CKD-5). Over time, CVD hospitalisation rates significantly increased for HF-CKD-only (+26%) and reduced (-24%) for HF-T2D-only groups; no reductions were observed in any of the HF-T2D-CKD groups. Trends were similar for non-CVD hospitalisations and death: whilst death rates significantly reduced for HF-T2D-only (-37%), improvement was not observed in any of the T2D-CKD groups. Interpretation: In a cohort of people with new onset HF, hospitalisations and deaths are high in patients with T2D or CKD, and worst in those with both comorbidities. Whilst outcomes have improved over time for patients with HF and comorbid T2D, similar trends were not seen in those with comorbid CKD. Strategies to prevent and manage CKD in people with HF are urgently needed. [reference: NIHR 30011] (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd